enbyglitch's review
3.0
Reviewing the stories I ended up reading, but didn't review individually:
"The Matter of Seggri" - 4/5
Wow, going from Le Guin's Earthsea series to her other works is quite a jump. Sex and gender are again a huge focus here, this time in a world where men are allowed only to compete in games and procreate.
It is a fascinating vision, especially where it demonstrates Le Guin's understanding of gender and also where it brushes up against trans issues. Despite being a society as deeply unhealthy as our own history, the potential differences may be useful to contemplate.
Still fairly unfamiliar with this setting and the colonial aspect is a little suspect to me, though the idea of a galactic library is very very cool.
"Unchosen Love" and "Mountain Ways" - 3/5
Another interesting lens by which to view gender, sex and relationships, but I found the stories themselves a little tedious. Great to see an SFF author in the 80's/90's exploring and promoting queer ideas; just wishing for a more sociological and less interpersonal perspective here.
-- Overall --
Some fascinating ideas here but I had a very difficult time engaging with the sociological short stories that Le Guin is trying for.
I hope to read at least "Paradises Lost" eventually, but for now I'm taking a step back from the collection.
"The Matter of Seggri" - 4/5
Wow, going from Le Guin's Earthsea series to her other works is quite a jump. Sex and gender are again a huge focus here, this time in a world where men are allowed only to compete in games and procreate.
It is a fascinating vision, especially where it demonstrates Le Guin's understanding of gender and also where it brushes up against trans issues. Despite being a society as deeply unhealthy as our own history, the potential differences may be useful to contemplate.
Still fairly unfamiliar with this setting and the colonial aspect is a little suspect to me, though the idea of a galactic library is very very cool.
"Unchosen Love" and "Mountain Ways" - 3/5
Another interesting lens by which to view gender, sex and relationships, but I found the stories themselves a little tedious. Great to see an SFF author in the 80's/90's exploring and promoting queer ideas; just wishing for a more sociological and less interpersonal perspective here.
-- Overall --
Some fascinating ideas here but I had a very difficult time engaging with the sociological short stories that Le Guin is trying for.
I hope to read at least "Paradises Lost" eventually, but for now I'm taking a step back from the collection.
kittykornerlibrarian's review
3.0
I wish there were an option for "I didn't finish this but I will get back to it later." Because I didn't finish this, not because I didn't like it especially, but because it felt like too much. The writing is beautiful, and I didn't realize that Le Guin focuses so much on gender and sexuality in her stories. Which is a good thing. The writing is beautiful and very deliberate and also has this shadowy, ethereal quality that was interesting for a while, but I just can't keep going with it. Which maybe says more about me. There are certain stories of hers I want to read but I think a little at a time is better for me with this author.
jbloom94's review
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
starla's review
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
crabbyabbe's review
I tried, oh, how I tried. I just could not get interested in Le Guin's writing style or her idea of science fiction.
rujein's review
5.0
I started reading this book because I felt like I should support more female science fiction writers, and boy did I feel validated by the end of this book. Female scifi authors may be few and far between, but it's definitely worth my time, because they explore such different themes from male authors. Not sure if it's my bias speaking, but I also feel that they write the emotional dimension of relationships much more tenderly/ with greater depth than male authors.
In essence, this book explores the theme of gender/sexuality by imagining alternative ways of organising gender-sexuality in different societies, which also leads to different sorts of relationships (although I suppose, given that we all live in a this society, it is inevitable that traces of our society seep through, and of course, emotions are universal!). Overall, like any good writer, Le Guin doesn't valorise any of these arrangements (or our own!), but rather explores them - showing how they could be freeing and expressions of a broader/different concept of love, but also how there might be still be drawbacks perhaps not akin to our own but constraining/hurtful in their own ways.
In “Coming of Age in Karhide”, we follow an adolescent Gethen, a race of hermaphrodites who only become a particular gender during their maturing seasons, during which they have free sexual relations with multiple partners of both genders. Through the story, we follow the adolescent from their position as 'outsider' to this ritual, to 'insider' (and perhaps in this way, Le Guin gently eases us into this unfamiliar mode of gender/sexual relations). The adolescent first regards this ritual with some disdain, seeing mating as a sort of 'uncivilised', animalistic behaviour, not befitting of the intelligence of the species. But later, once the adolescent has experienced the ritual, they see it as a form of love. There is an interesting passage, where the adolescent experiences such bliss after each sexual encounter that they believe themself to be in love with each subsequent person with whom they have relations, before finally realising that they can love all these people. In this way, Le Guin portrays the physical act of sex as a form of love connecting individuals, no less 'noble' than the rational/emotional connections we form with others. Perhaps there is also a message about the non-exclusiveness of love, that it doesn't have to be limited to a single person as it is (selfishly?) in our society today.
In “The Matter of Seggri”, Seggri is a society plagued by extreme gender imbalance, with females outnumbering males 16 to 1. (This is a result of some earlier experimentation with their genes, which I will not go into in this review, but also deserves some thought.) As a result, predictably, males are valorised and treated very preciously, given many privileges on the surface (e.g. they need not work, but rather play in games for women's entertainment). What's interesting is that, men do not hold the power in the society - women do. Women get to study and go to college, women set up families together, and (as one of the short short stories shows) are deemed the only gender capable of love. This arrangement is essentially the inverse of the gender power dynamics in our society, and the unfamiliarity of it is so jarring as to bring out the oddness of our gender relations. While men, to all intents and purposes, seem to have a good deal in this society, enjoying various privileges and getting to eat and drink and have sex, they are oppressed and feel suffocated because of the lack of options, lack of freedom to choose their path. The rigid life within a 'castle' is suffocating, and men do not have the freedom to love and form emotional relationships as women are able to. Indeed, the story which touched me most was a short love affair between a high-status woman and a man, where the woman eventually abandoned the man in favour of setting up a family with two other women. While the woman had the whole world to explore and people to meet and have relationships with, and was able to progress in her life, the man was stuck in the castle and unable to leave, and in this way perhaps he clung on to his love for the woman as the only thing in his life which had meaning. [An interesting side note about the form of this short piece: It's a series of vignettes written in various formats (first-person account, logbook of a spaceship, fiction etc.), from different perspectives, and over a period of time in this society's history. This permits us to see the challenges faced by different segments of the society (even an outside assessment of the society), and in different dimensions of life (relationships, but also individual growth).]
In “Solitude”, a female scientist chooses to raise her children on a foreign planet, to help her gain entry into the society and learn about them. This is necessary because the adults live almost completely separately in this society (men live as individuals or pairs away from the villages, and women in the village live in separate houses and do not interact), and only children get to interact with each other and with adults to 'learn'. Through this device, we get to be both the insider and the outsider in this story - through the girl who grew up on this planet, and her mother who is a scientific observer. Through the girl, we understand the appeal of this society - the freedom of being a 'person' with no ties to anyone else, rather than part of 'people' who are affected by the whims and fancies of others. If I interpreted correctly, Le Guin goes as far as to refer to any emotional power or hold over another as 'magic', which is regarded as evil in their society (the girl refers to her desire to stay with only one man as 'magic', and her mother and brother exerting 'magic' over her). At the same time, warmth and community still exist, contrary to what the mother thinks. Women do give each other information about their loved ones, although in a more distant manner consistent with their culture, and they come together at times of birth and death. Through the mother, we gain an understanding that this culture is a result of the planet's history (which makes it seem less noble somehow), and see her view that this society is cold and impersonal, and she is unable to fit in even after 7 years. With the combination of these two perspectives, we are never able to make a decision on whether to judge this society positively or negatively. [Side note: The mother choosing to use her own children as a way to gain entry into the society and understand how it works, is another side road which I will not go down, but suffice to say it is a morally dubious and irresponsible decision, and her indignance and insistence on her rights as a mother later on are very unjustified.]
In the world of “The Birthday of the World”, brother-sister couples become God by marrying. The story portrays the end of this civilisation, as the brother-sister couple we meet give up their God status because they recognised some aliens as Gods (erroneously, as they claim). It's an interesting look into how it might feel being brought up as God (also interesting is the idea that God must be both a male and a female). Le Guin manages to write the story such that I feel empathy/ understanding for the female God figure - we see that she truly believes in the mythology, and she is willing to relinquish her position as God when she 'realises' that someone else is God.
In “Paradises Lost”, we meet a generation of space explorers who grew up only knowing the ship (generation 5 to be exact). The story explored the psychology of the middle generation living out their lives on the ship, not seeing either the start of the end of the journey. I find it very plausible that this would eventually breed a faction which needed a faith in order to continue on the journey. Le Guin also shows how this belief evolves - from a fairly innocuous need to justify the meaning of life on the ship and never touching earth, to overly valorising the journey itself to the extent of excluding reality, and taking action to ensure that their faith is not proven false (and not changing their minds even when the ship lands on the new planet and proves that there is something outside of the ship). This is foreshadowed by Hsing reading a 0-generation account of how these generations are 'victims' doomed to live life on the ship.
The story also explored to a lesser extent 'regular' human relationships - how the Chinese quadrant is more inward facing (not wanting to mix with other races and retaining their language and culture where others have lost theirs by the fifth generation); Yao and Jael's relationship in the face of their cultural differences' (and how Matherson's personality allows him to tolerate this lol); how Hsing (inevitably?) fell for her professor - a older, intelligent person in a position of authority - while still carrying a torch for Luis, while Luis waited on in unrequited love.
Throughout the book, I also gained an appreciation of Le Guin's writing style. Though not overtly literary (like other scifi writers), she is still more literary than the other scifi authors I've read, and I think she treats the relationships and characters with greater sensitivity. While things still happen in her stories, I always felt like the real events were taking place internally, within the inner world of her characters. Le Guin manages to depict various forms of love (romantic love, familial love, love for humanity/community in general) convincingly.
In essence, this book explores the theme of gender/sexuality by imagining alternative ways of organising gender-sexuality in different societies, which also leads to different sorts of relationships (although I suppose, given that we all live in a this society, it is inevitable that traces of our society seep through, and of course, emotions are universal!). Overall, like any good writer, Le Guin doesn't valorise any of these arrangements (or our own!), but rather explores them - showing how they could be freeing and expressions of a broader/different concept of love, but also how there might be still be drawbacks perhaps not akin to our own but constraining/hurtful in their own ways.
In “Coming of Age in Karhide”, we follow an adolescent Gethen, a race of hermaphrodites who only become a particular gender during their maturing seasons, during which they have free sexual relations with multiple partners of both genders. Through the story, we follow the adolescent from their position as 'outsider' to this ritual, to 'insider' (and perhaps in this way, Le Guin gently eases us into this unfamiliar mode of gender/sexual relations). The adolescent first regards this ritual with some disdain, seeing mating as a sort of 'uncivilised', animalistic behaviour, not befitting of the intelligence of the species. But later, once the adolescent has experienced the ritual, they see it as a form of love. There is an interesting passage, where the adolescent experiences such bliss after each sexual encounter that they believe themself to be in love with each subsequent person with whom they have relations, before finally realising that they can love all these people. In this way, Le Guin portrays the physical act of sex as a form of love connecting individuals, no less 'noble' than the rational/emotional connections we form with others. Perhaps there is also a message about the non-exclusiveness of love, that it doesn't have to be limited to a single person as it is (selfishly?) in our society today.
In “The Matter of Seggri”, Seggri is a society plagued by extreme gender imbalance, with females outnumbering males 16 to 1. (This is a result of some earlier experimentation with their genes, which I will not go into in this review, but also deserves some thought.) As a result, predictably, males are valorised and treated very preciously, given many privileges on the surface (e.g. they need not work, but rather play in games for women's entertainment). What's interesting is that, men do not hold the power in the society - women do. Women get to study and go to college, women set up families together, and (as one of the short short stories shows) are deemed the only gender capable of love. This arrangement is essentially the inverse of the gender power dynamics in our society, and the unfamiliarity of it is so jarring as to bring out the oddness of our gender relations. While men, to all intents and purposes, seem to have a good deal in this society, enjoying various privileges and getting to eat and drink and have sex, they are oppressed and feel suffocated because of the lack of options, lack of freedom to choose their path. The rigid life within a 'castle' is suffocating, and men do not have the freedom to love and form emotional relationships as women are able to. Indeed, the story which touched me most was a short love affair between a high-status woman and a man, where the woman eventually abandoned the man in favour of setting up a family with two other women. While the woman had the whole world to explore and people to meet and have relationships with, and was able to progress in her life, the man was stuck in the castle and unable to leave, and in this way perhaps he clung on to his love for the woman as the only thing in his life which had meaning. [An interesting side note about the form of this short piece: It's a series of vignettes written in various formats (first-person account, logbook of a spaceship, fiction etc.), from different perspectives, and over a period of time in this society's history. This permits us to see the challenges faced by different segments of the society (even an outside assessment of the society), and in different dimensions of life (relationships, but also individual growth).]
In “Solitude”, a female scientist chooses to raise her children on a foreign planet, to help her gain entry into the society and learn about them. This is necessary because the adults live almost completely separately in this society (men live as individuals or pairs away from the villages, and women in the village live in separate houses and do not interact), and only children get to interact with each other and with adults to 'learn'. Through this device, we get to be both the insider and the outsider in this story - through the girl who grew up on this planet, and her mother who is a scientific observer. Through the girl, we understand the appeal of this society - the freedom of being a 'person' with no ties to anyone else, rather than part of 'people' who are affected by the whims and fancies of others. If I interpreted correctly, Le Guin goes as far as to refer to any emotional power or hold over another as 'magic', which is regarded as evil in their society (the girl refers to her desire to stay with only one man as 'magic', and her mother and brother exerting 'magic' over her). At the same time, warmth and community still exist, contrary to what the mother thinks. Women do give each other information about their loved ones, although in a more distant manner consistent with their culture, and they come together at times of birth and death. Through the mother, we gain an understanding that this culture is a result of the planet's history (which makes it seem less noble somehow), and see her view that this society is cold and impersonal, and she is unable to fit in even after 7 years. With the combination of these two perspectives, we are never able to make a decision on whether to judge this society positively or negatively. [Side note: The mother choosing to use her own children as a way to gain entry into the society and understand how it works, is another side road which I will not go down, but suffice to say it is a morally dubious and irresponsible decision, and her indignance and insistence on her rights as a mother later on are very unjustified.]
In the world of “The Birthday of the World”, brother-sister couples become God by marrying. The story portrays the end of this civilisation, as the brother-sister couple we meet give up their God status because they recognised some aliens as Gods (erroneously, as they claim). It's an interesting look into how it might feel being brought up as God (also interesting is the idea that God must be both a male and a female). Le Guin manages to write the story such that I feel empathy/ understanding for the female God figure - we see that she truly believes in the mythology, and she is willing to relinquish her position as God when she 'realises' that someone else is God.
In “Paradises Lost”, we meet a generation of space explorers who grew up only knowing the ship (generation 5 to be exact). The story explored the psychology of the middle generation living out their lives on the ship, not seeing either the start of the end of the journey. I find it very plausible that this would eventually breed a faction which needed a faith in order to continue on the journey. Le Guin also shows how this belief evolves - from a fairly innocuous need to justify the meaning of life on the ship and never touching earth, to overly valorising the journey itself to the extent of excluding reality, and taking action to ensure that their faith is not proven false (and not changing their minds even when the ship lands on the new planet and proves that there is something outside of the ship). This is foreshadowed by Hsing reading a 0-generation account of how these generations are 'victims' doomed to live life on the ship.
The story also explored to a lesser extent 'regular' human relationships - how the Chinese quadrant is more inward facing (not wanting to mix with other races and retaining their language and culture where others have lost theirs by the fifth generation); Yao and Jael's relationship in the face of their cultural differences' (and how Matherson's personality allows him to tolerate this lol); how Hsing (inevitably?) fell for her professor - a older, intelligent person in a position of authority - while still carrying a torch for Luis, while Luis waited on in unrequited love.
Throughout the book, I also gained an appreciation of Le Guin's writing style. Though not overtly literary (like other scifi writers), she is still more literary than the other scifi authors I've read, and I think she treats the relationships and characters with greater sensitivity. While things still happen in her stories, I always felt like the real events were taking place internally, within the inner world of her characters. Le Guin manages to depict various forms of love (romantic love, familial love, love for humanity/community in general) convincingly.
poachedeggs's review against another edition
4.0
Many of these short stories take place in the same universe [b:The Left Hand of Darkness|18423|The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle, #4)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388229638s/18423.jpg|817527] does, but Le Guin goes further in exploring matters to do with sex and love for a few of them. More than just being 'experiments', though, her worlds are complete, organic. You can also picture them growing beyond her, the births and deaths and forests extending beyond what we can see on the page.
What if...
- A marriage were a foursome (a sedoretu with a 'Day' male/female pair and an 'Evening' male/female pair), with sexual relationships only allowable between those of different moieties - Day/Evening pairs - so a Day male, for instance, can only couple with the Evening male and female - yet must maintain a spouse-/sibling-like relationship with his Day partner?
- Men were objectified and had to be banished to a castle once they came of age, 'released' only to perform impregnation duties?
- (and this is from The Left Hand of Darkness) There were no fixed gender, but one became temporarily male or female depending on the first sexual partner one met when one was in kemmer?
- What we label as a primitive need for solitude arose from a higher-order practice of cultivating one's soul?
- Religion were about the journey, and not the destination? [The last story, 'Paradises Lost', is about a group of people sent to discover a new planet habitable for man (SO MUCH better than [book:Across the Universe|8235178] though), where the humans find 'Bliss' to make life purposeful.]
My only quibble is that Le Guin's intentions can be a little transparent at times - (the flipping of black/white, male/female domination; nuclear weaponry). That only applies to a couple of stories though ("Old Music and the Slave Women"), and despite that, one can't help marvelling at Le Guin's genius and scope of ambition in marrying art and science.
What if...
- A marriage were a foursome (a sedoretu with a 'Day' male/female pair and an 'Evening' male/female pair), with sexual relationships only allowable between those of different moieties - Day/Evening pairs - so a Day male, for instance, can only couple with the Evening male and female - yet must maintain a spouse-/sibling-like relationship with his Day partner?
- Men were objectified and had to be banished to a castle once they came of age, 'released' only to perform impregnation duties?
- (and this is from The Left Hand of Darkness) There were no fixed gender, but one became temporarily male or female depending on the first sexual partner one met when one was in kemmer?
- What we label as a primitive need for solitude arose from a higher-order practice of cultivating one's soul?
- Religion were about the journey, and not the destination? [The last story, 'Paradises Lost', is about a group of people sent to discover a new planet habitable for man (SO MUCH better than [book:Across the Universe|8235178] though), where the humans find 'Bliss' to make life purposeful.]
My only quibble is that Le Guin's intentions can be a little transparent at times - (the flipping of black/white, male/female domination; nuclear weaponry). That only applies to a couple of stories though ("Old Music and the Slave Women"), and despite that, one can't help marvelling at Le Guin's genius and scope of ambition in marrying art and science.
elenajohansen's review against another edition
4.0
As always, a book of short stories and novellas is going to be hit or miss, even from a favorite author. I loved most of the stories; having read the entirety of the Hainish Cycle this year, I was glad to revisit many of the worlds and cultures. That being said, there were two stories, the titular novella in particular, that didn't move me.
The stories I did enjoy, while not directly related as in Four Ways to Forgiveness, nonetheless explored similar themes of love, identity, and sexuality. In fact, having grown up reading Le Guin's early and nearly sexless Earthsea trilogy over and over, it's remarkable to me that her later works dive into sexuality so deeply. While the modern English terms aren't present, bisexuality and a rigid form of polyamory are the norm in one of her alien cultures, gender fluidity in another, and most of her later works, including this one, include queerness in multiple forms beyond that. It's really refreshing to see an author move past heteronormativity, as Le Guin acknowledged she wanted to do when she looked back on her old works and saw missed opportunities.
The stories I did enjoy, while not directly related as in Four Ways to Forgiveness, nonetheless explored similar themes of love, identity, and sexuality. In fact, having grown up reading Le Guin's early and nearly sexless Earthsea trilogy over and over, it's remarkable to me that her later works dive into sexuality so deeply. While the modern English terms aren't present, bisexuality and a rigid form of polyamory are the norm in one of her alien cultures, gender fluidity in another, and most of her later works, including this one, include queerness in multiple forms beyond that. It's really refreshing to see an author move past heteronormativity, as Le Guin acknowledged she wanted to do when she looked back on her old works and saw missed opportunities.